Elkview shoppers could be stranded another night; DOH building temporary road

ELKVIEW, W.Va. — Authorities say those who are stranded at a Kanawha County shopping plaza won’t be able to make it out with their vehicles until Saturday following heavy storms that caused a bridge to collapse there.

The bridge, which leads into the Elkview Crossings Plaza over the Little Sandy Creek, fell through Thursday night. Crews with the state Division of Highways were on the scene just off Interstate 79 where a temporary road is being built behind 84 Lumber.

Doug Douglas, firefighter with the Pinch Fire Department, was helping people get down a steep hill which leads down to another bridge nearby. He said the goal was to build a trail to get as many people down it as possible and then to build a road so vehicles can travel down it on Saturday.

“Once they start building the road, they’re going to be here throughout the night,” Douglas.

A rope line was used to get people down the hill. Several people were able to get out. Others stayed to camp out because they didn’t want to leave their vehicles or were worried about flooding back home.

“The attitude of most people has been very positive,” Douglas said. “No body’s been arguing. No body’s upset. It’s just a fact of life.”

Gary King, of Spencer, was camping with his family in Sutton when he was told they had to evacuate the campground. He said they ended up meeting at the plaza because several roads were flooded.

“We just decided to meet here, bring a camper down here, get the camper ready for the night, let the water go down and head home this morning and then last night we heard that the bridge washed out, so here we are,” King said.

King’s family got lucky, he said, because they had beds to sleep in and food packed up for camping.

“We’re making the best of it,” he said.

A Florida couple, who was passing through the area, had reservations at the La Quinta hotel that quickly filled up Thursday night. Edward Czarnecki, of Lake City, Florida, said him and his wife were on their way to Akron, Ohio for a family member’s funeral.

“I don’t know if we’re going to make it,” the couple said at the same time as they watched fire crews help people down the hill.

“I went down to the lobby and they said you can’t leave and I was like ‘what do you mean we can’t leave?’ They said it’s one road in and one road out and there’s no more road,” Czarnecki said.

The view was amazing, but devastating, he said.

“To actually see some of it falling — I’ve never experienced anything like this,” he said.

Earlier in the day, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) stopped by the site to check out the damage. He said the National Guard was looking to build a makeshift bridge where the collapse was located.

“We’re hoping to find a bridge either in Clarksburg or down in Kentucky — get it here as quickly as we can,” he said.

As the death toll in West Virginia kept rising Friday, Manchin said his thoughts and prayers are with those affected by the floods.

“It’s just devastating,” Manchin said. “We’ve been hit so hard in so many different ways. To have people lose their lives and especially children, no matter what, it’s devastating.”

Manchin said he got caught in Thursday’s storms in southern West Virginia which “never stopped.”

“It wasn’t like hit and miss. It just kept coming and we got the worst of it,” he said.

As of Friday afternoon, several businesses at the plaza were still without gas and water.

At one point, there were over 500 people stranded at the shopping center.





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